I stole the Storm Lake barrel and Briley bushing to put in my Norinco, which has the common "soft barrel" problem. I decided to set the 5" slide aside and take this opportunity to stretch the envelope a bit.

By popular vote, I just purchased a stainless 6" long slide. It's a Para surplus from Sarco, $225, which is a pretty good price for a long slide. I'm not tremendously fond of the front serrations and I hope the roll marks can be removed without too much trouble; I really like the smooth look. The Para slide has different sight dovetails than my old one, of course, and it uses the larger-diameter "PXT" extractor, which will need a sleeve to work with a standard 1911 extractor. It's also set up for the Series 80 firing pin interlock bits. I don't find that objectionable, but I'll probably just go with the simpler old-school FCG bits.

Sarco says the slide uses a standard 1911 spring plug. They listed a longer spring for the 6" slide for less than four bucks; I figured I'd use that to shoot the gun as a .45 before reaming it out to .460.

So, I'm checking the mailbox every day, and no package from Sarco yet...

In the meantime I've been scheming about ways to keep from beating the slide and frame up. One obvious thing is to throw a buffer in there so the spring hood on the slide doesn't slam directly onto the recoil spring guide.

On a standard 5" .45 a buffer serves little purpose, plus it shortens the slide travel and can cause feeding problems. With the substantially stouter .460, yeah, I think I can justify a buffer there. But the slide travel problem remains.

I have about .040" overlap between the slide and frame on the stainless bits, and a bit more on the Norinco. I could mill a bit of that off, .015 or .020". Better than nothing. Or I could set up the frame on the mill, buy a long end mill, and reach down in there to the Vertical Impact Surface and take off the entire length of the buffer - there's a lot of space between the VIS and the barrel, link, or slide stop pin. Probably the best solution...

Then I looked at the spring guide. Hmm, the slide hits it, but it's solidly backed up by the VIS. I could probably take .030" off the flange without hurting it a bit. They're cheap, I could just keep thinning the flange until it cracked, then cut another one less.

A little off the slide, a bit more off the spring guide, yeah, that would help.

Then I started looking at the spring guide. The flange gets smacked by the slide, the cylindrical part keeps the spring from collapsing sideways, but it's all contained when under load. The Voices suggested, "Why not turn some of that nylon bar stock you have under the lathe into a spring guide and use the Dremel to shape the flange? Then no machining would be necessary; the whole spring guide would be the buffer."

I thought about that for a while, then figured the Voices had actually come up with an idea worth trying. But I reached for the keyboard and did a web search... well, whaddaya know. A place called Lone Star Ordnance sells plastic 1911 spring guides already. $30 for a 10-pack, $4.63 for a single, with free shipping. Click-click-click, one's on the way. If it looks good I'll order a 10-pack; buffers are consumable items.

The Sarco order showed up today. Despite Sarco's claim, the barrel sure looks like a casting to me, at least around the feet. The rifling is shiny and crisp, though. I'm going to use it anyway.

The slide fits the frame nicely. It has an extra hole that I guess is for the Series 80 safety bits. The finish is some kind of hard black, with the sides ground shiny. It looks way better in the metal than in the pictures. The spring plunger and barrel bushing holes are noticeably tighter than my two 5" slides; I can't even start the Briley bushing in it.

I assembled the frame, slide, barrel, slide stop, the Para longslide spring, and an old spring guide and bushing. Installing the loooong spring is like trying to stuff a snake into a sock. I racked the slide a couple of time, held the gun out, waggled it around... I wasn't sure about this whole long slide thing before. I was hoping I hadn't made an expensive mistake... but - I *like* it!

The Para setup uses a long spring and a standard plunger. Most other long slides used a standard spring and a special plunger. I haven't checked Wolff yet to see what spring options are for the long springs, but I've pretty much decided to go with a special plunger and a standard Government Model spring. EGW makes a plunger with an internal step just for that. I'll try the long spring just to see if the gun likes it, but I wouldn't like to wrestle that snake unless I had to. It's not 1" longer, it's closer to 3" longer...

Playing with the bits, the Para slide fits the Caspian frame quite snugly. The fit at the back of the frame is pretty good, too. 1911 variants differ a fair amount back there, so I got lucky twice.

I have a Wilson stainless slide release with the standard Colt shape. I just reach my index finger forward on the Norinco when necessary, so I didn't see any need for a giant batwing.

The Sarco trigger bow doesn't fit the Caspian frame at all. The bow will have to be reshaped. Brownell's sells a swaging tool for just that purpose, but given the price I'll see about beating the bow into shape first. Part of the problem was I wanted a USGI-style trigger, except in stainless and aluminum. You can get all kinds of tacticool shapes, but there aren't all that many options for a stock-Colt-shaped trigger.

The next step is to find a safety. I want a stainless one to match the frame, and since a left-hand-only safety isn't possible on a 1911 it'll have to be ambidextrous. And I want the small Colt nubs instead of giant bat wings.

There are several types of ambi safeties. I spent all night reading about how the joints work, what keeps the right side lever from falling off, etc. Safeties run from "expensive" to "OMFG WTF?" Except a real Colt Commander stainless ambi safety can be had for only $35. The Meuschke looks like it is better designed and it's not much more, but it only comes with giant bat wings. I'm going to go with the Colt part and see how it holds up. If I don't like it I'll try the Meuschke and take a Dremel to some of the bat wings.

I think I mentioned the Pachmyr wraparound grip upthread. Colt sells a nearly identical part, except without the stupid thumb swells. That's on the shopping list for later.

I kept reading about people "riding the safety" and shoving it up to accidentally lock the slide back when shooting, and others who apparently rest their finger on top of the safety, touching the slide. You can get high-mount batwings or low-mount batwings depending on your safety-riding style. It has never been an issue for me; with my normal grip, the end of my thumb overlaps my ring finger, way down from the safety or slide.